TABLE TALK

Home, sweet home

DENIS BROGAN

It is now a fortnight since I arrived back in my native land, and I have by now become `acclimated', as the Americans put it, after five months' exile. I have had to make this adjustment a great many times—at least fifty times—on return from the United States, but this return had its own special flavour. I came back by a fairly long sea voyage (eight days) on an Italian ship, the `Raffaello'. That is to say, I entered Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar. It was one of the signs of non-pro- gress that, since I wanted—indeed needed for medical reasons—to come back by sea, there was only one ship available, and that was a ship of the Italian Line whose home port is Genoa, but which was ready to drop me and other people off at Cannes. I had to fly from Nice to London so that my voyage gave me a good deal of time to adjust myself to the Old World and to prepare myself psychologically for a return to a continent I had left five months before.

While at sea I devoted little or no thought to the great problems of the day and indeed read little or nothing at all, not even my favourite Stendhal Correspondence which I had taken with me to keep myself en- tertained without being too involved. I wanted, since I had to come back this way, to compare the Italian Line with the other lines I have used—British, French, Dutch, Canadian, etc. The comparison was highly favourable to the Italian Line. For one thing there was the agreeable sound of Italian voices. I know that Genoa does not produce people who speak the lingua tuscana in boc- ca romana, but Italian is an agreeable language to listen to even when not spoken with the purest Tuscan-Roman accent.

My main disappointment was due to climatic and other obstacles. I had hoped to see Naples, which I had never seen. I had hoped to sail on the Mediterranean in good weather and perhaps, approaching the Mediterranean, to see the Azores. I had even tried to recall a poem of Browning's which I had very much liked as a schoolboy: 'Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died away.' Alas, it was dusk when we got to Algeciras at which port a good many Americans got off with their cars on their way to Madrid, and all I could see of Gibraltar was its outline in electric lights, no doubt directed against Franco, but giving the Rock (which I had visited in the distant past) a vague air of Blackpool. But we did see the north African coast, Corsic4, Elba, Sardinia, and we were landed at Cannes, rather late but in good temper.

The good temper tended to evaporate as Cannes is not really designed to receive passengers from a ship of the size of the `Raffaello' (50,000 tons), and the Italian Line dumped our luggage hastily on the quay and made off for Genoa. However, the French customs were extremely tolerant; not, as far as I could see, opening any baggage at all.

Since I have in the past had reason to com- plain of some British tourist services, including or especially those provided in re- cent years by Thomas Cook, I can only con- gratulate BEA on the admirable service which not only prevented me from losing my ticket, as is my habit, but provided as good a meal as one can expect in a plane, and a meal which underlined one of the oddities of American air travel which I have never been able to explain to myself: even when flying first class on, let us say, United Airlines, the passenger is given only one knife with which he has to cut bread, spread butter, cut meat, help himself to cheese, etc. It was very gratifying to have three knives provided by BEA, even though I used only two of them.

The pleasure of being back in London fully compensated for the delays of the customs. Here was a city in which the murder rate was remarkably low and in which the natural good manners of the inhabitants contrasted with the natural bad manners of most New Yorkers. Here was a city in which trains running from London to Cambridge were running absolutely to time. I contrasted the service with the new, highly touted service of the Pennsylvania-New York Central Line whose 'Metro Liners' are faster than the horrible trains of the old Tennsy', but are not fast by British, still less by French, standards. Nor is the table d'hôte meal which costs a pound to be compared with the better a la carte meal you get for about eight shillings on British Railways.

But it was other aspects of British life that began to restore my faith in human nature. In my absence, there had been a great in- crease in the hairiness of young males, and the maxi coats were now as universal as they had been in New York (I must say that the New York maxi coats looked better: they were much more expensive and smarter). As for hairiness. I saw no beard to equal one I had seen a' a highbrow party in New York which was quite the equal of the beard of Karl Marx as represented by his bust in Highgate Cemetery. Another American had whiskers which recalled the famous photograph of T. H. Huxley with a skull in his hand. But one or two Cambridge un- dergraduates have mops of hair which I had not seen equalled in any part of the United States.

I found at once what the main grievance of the inhabitants of South Britain evidently is. Prices have risen rapidly since I left, so my wife tells me, and so do other people tell me. I noticed the rise in the price of newspapers, of which I am a reckless con- sumer. I have also been able, of course, to study the local newspapers after hardly even seeing any British papers for five months. I began re-reading my favourite ecclesiastical papers, the Church Times, the Catholic Herald, and the Jewish Chronicle, all of which compounded in their own richness in a way that made me feel at home.

I was also eager to inspect the new Ne►vs of the World. I had heard unkind comments on it—that it was even more worldly than it had been before Mr Murdoch of Australia took it over. The new News of the World seemed very much like the old News of the World, but there was more solemn comment, including a column by Mr Auberon Waugh, than in the great days of the great national newspaper. In those days Mr Peter Fleming could write (in this journal) that the only paper living up to C. P. Scott's famous dic- tum that `News is sacred, comment free', was the News of the World: there was no com- ment. Nowadays, one is in danger of reading a great deal of deep thoughts when looking out for more and more sport, the rioting of football fanatics. etc., which is what, after all, one reads the News of the World for.

The Guardian, I am glad to say, was even richer ins printers' errors than ever, and the Times had a remarkably bad obituary of an eminent American and refused to print my letter of correction. Which shows the weakness of obituaries in that great journal, despite my self-appointed censorial role.

It is very agreeable indeed to get home again and to have to remember who are the various ministers who are being attacked; who are the shadow ministers; and what all

the controversy is about. It is even a relief of a kind not to have to read the New York Times, simply because reading the New York Times is a career in itself. If this means that there are a great many events in the

world of which I know nothing, I can, at my advanced years, put up with that. Soon I shall be able to remember who is the English Attorney General and the Scottish Lord Ad- vocate. And I can report that one of the most successful British cultural exports to the

United States is doing better than ever. I

don't mean the Beatles or the Rolling Stones: I mean Andy Capp who is now the only rival in sophisticated circles to Charlie Brown of Peanuts. By next week, I shall be able to try to follow the latest political manoeuvres of our rulers, remembering who are the various ministers for improving this and that, and who are leading us into a new and better world of technological supremacy.